


Playing Politics

by SaffronSnitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, F/M, Jilytober 2020, Tumblr: jilytober, Wizarding Politics (Harry Potter), james and lily are politicians and it's so fun, the marauders dress up for halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaffronSnitch/pseuds/SaffronSnitch
Summary: James Potter is the youngest ever Minister of Magic, and he's not about to be shown up by some Muggle Prime Minister in her first week on the job — but this red-haired woman with wit sharper than a banshee's shriek has other plans.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	Playing Politics

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Jilytober everyone!  
> This is an AU on many levels, but perhaps most notably this story takes place in a world where the term ‘Glass Ceiling’ was coined by University of Exeter professors Michelle K. Ryan and Alexander Haslam years earlier than 2004. This last point will make sense once you read:)

By the time seven p.m. rolled around, James had already been yelled at by five different people, and he really couldn’t handle a sixth.

“I give up,” he moaned to Sirius, hands fumbling to loosen his tie as his head lolled over the back of his desk chair.

“So soon?” asked Sirius, eyes glinting. Sirius was stretched out across the couch near the door, and James was debating whether or not to just call it done and join him. Sirius took a swig from a bottle of dark liquid, and James straightened up at once, looking at the bottle.

“If that’s alcohol,” he said grandly, “I command you to share it with me.”

“Oh, you _command_ me, oh mighty one.”

“Padfoot.”

Sirius sent a toothy grin James’s way and tipped his head. “Then I’m sure you’ll be pleased to discover it’s only tea. Not even caffeinated.”

James tilted his head back again and groaned, rubbing his eyes under his glasses and mentally scanning through all the worst parts of the day. First, he had been late to his pre-meeting meeting with Remus, who didn’t yell at him but did have that awfully effective look of disapproval written all over his face. Then he had the actual meeting with the Board of Governors of Hogwarts, and three of them had yelled until their voices were hoarse simply because James had said he maybe understood Hogwarts students more than any of the Governors because he was the most recent graduate of those halls. His executive assistant, Marlene McKinnon, a very capable yeller whom he knew from school, had gone off on him around lunchtime for refusing to let her sit in on policy sessions (a matter in which he was entirely in the wrong, but he had a splitting headache and ended up snapping back at her, which earned him a wallop on the shoulder with her copy of the Daily Prophet). The fifth yeller was, surprisingly, his mum, who had sent a Howler right as he was taking a bite of his dinner, a takeaway curry that Remus had brought him as a peace offering. Euphemia was yelling about some sort of fancy dinner that he had missed over the weekend. The only redeeming feature of the Howler was that he could hear his father toddling around in the background, muttering to himself about how his wife was being just a tad overdramatic. The Howler ended with James’s mum yelling at his dad as well, a fitting tribute to the female-oriented idiocies of Potter men.

“You almost ready?” Remus had popped his head into James’s office and was already dressed for the outdoors, a sweater and tartan scarf pulled over his button-up. 

“Almost, my love,” said Sirius, and it was a testament to the overall elusive and mysterious nature of his friend that even after fifteen years of knowing him and living together, James could still never tell if Sirius’s adorations and nicknames were genuine or taking the mickey. 

“Not you,” Remus responded without pause, rolling his eyes. “James. Are you good to go? Gamp’s portrait is ready for you.”

“Where are you going, then?” Sirius asked. “All dressed up.”

“Running around the corner to grab some supplies for tomorrow’s planning meeting,” Remus answered. Taking pity, he opened the door a little wider. “You can tag along, if you must.”

“Tell Gamp I’ll be ready in a moment,” said James, wearily sinking even lower in his chair. His friends paused at the doorway, but James waved them off. “I’ll be fine. Drinks back at the flat when I’m done?”

“Pete’s picking up the nice Ogden’s,” Remus said. With a wave and a smile they were out the door and James took a moment for himself.

It wasn’t that he expected the job to be _easy,_ obviously. He didn’t get to being the youngest ever Minister for Magic by lazing around. It was just that he hadn’t expected the job to be so _personal,_ where people expected things of _James Potter_ and not the Minister, while at the same time being so impersonal, people yelling and complaining without any sensitivity that he was trying, he really was, to make changes happen.

No wonder his predecessor was so tired-looking, James thought with a scoff. The rate the first two months were going, he was going to be a zombie by the end of November. 

He cast his eyes at the clock and saw that the minute hand had already passed 8 p.m. Blearily, he stood up from his desk. A joint in his neck popped. He had been sitting too long. Making a mental note to go for a jog the next morning, if he wasn’t hungover by his normal Friday night letting-off-of-steam, he pocketed his wand and made his way into the small room adjoining his office. 

The portrait room next to the Minister’s office was small, with barely enough room across wall-to-wall to fit a broomstick. This late in the evening, most of the figures of old ministers past were already snoozing in their portraits, but Ulick Gamp greeted James with a toady smile.

“Can you… uh… give your little spiel? To the Muggle Prime Minister?” James asked. Gamp nodded and stepped outside of the picture frame, ostensibly venturing to alert the Muggle Minister to the presence of magic. James tried to shake off the smirk that was creeping across his face — it probably wouldn’t be a good first impression if he stepped through the portrait hole laughing in a sleep-deprived sort of way.

He hadn’t met the Muggle Minister until nearly two months into his term for the simple reason that while he had been settling into his new role, the muggles had been running their election. Since it was all but confirmed that there would be a change in leadership, James had decided to wait it out.

“She’s ready for you,” came the snide voice of Gamp as he slid back into view. “She yelped rather ridiculously when I spoke, so you’ll have a fun time convincing her of anything.”

“Great,” muttered James to himself, stepping through the fireplace Floo. He bent his shoulder and neck to avoid hitting his head, then straightened up and fixed his robes.

The Muggle Prime Minister, a young-looking woman with dark red hair in twin plaits covering her ears, was staring at him with a mix of shock and intrigue, her mouth open. 

“Hi,” said James. She closed her mouth and stood to greet him.

“Hi,” she echoed, and then offered him a shaky hand. He took it and squeezed gently.

“James Potter, Minister for Magic,” he said.

“Lily Evans,” she said, and her eyes darted to the chair in front of her desk. “Would you like to sit down, Minister Potter?”

“Sure.” James released her hand and pulled the chair out for himself with an ankle. He sat back down and looked at Minister Lily Evans.

She looked just about as tired as he felt upon second inspection. She wore light makeup on her face, but it didn’t do much to hide the dark circles under her eyes or the look of stress in the way she held the corners of her mouth. He had given her until the end of her first week instead of barging in on election night like his predecessors, but now he wondered if that was the wrong decision.

“The portrait said you’re a wizard?” Lily’s sentence lilted up at the end, like it was a question instead of a statement. James nodded.

“It’s true. I am the Minister for Magic for the wizarding population in Britain.”

At that, Lily’s face changed to a broad smile, and James wondered if he’d misjudged her.

“But that’s _wicked!_ You can do _magic?”_

“You believe me?” She believed him just like that? James had been heavily warned by the portraits that Muggle Ministers were hard to talk to. Several past ministers had told him that their muggle counterparts had thrown a variety of objects — including a live cat and an umbrella stand — at them. 

This gave Lily pause. She surveyed him across the desk, and then tilted her head. “Should I _not_ believe you?” she asked. 

“You should believe me!” James said, and he raked a hand through his hair. “I’m a wand-carrying wizard, I swear to you.”

“Prove it.”

James stared back at Lily, whose face had hardened back again after that flit of excitement. “Er,” he said. “What do you want me to do.”

“Hm, I don’t know,” said Lily. “Maybe… ooh! Can you wave your wand and make me some scones? Dinner was _hours_ ago.”

Of course, she had picked something that he couldn’t do. He didn’t want to admit it, because she wouldn’t understand his explanation for why he couldn’t, but he had to do something or she would think this was all a hoax.

“Er,” he said again, stumbling over his thoughts. “I… can do that. But I don’t want to.”

Lily looked at him for a long moment before raising one eyebrow. Merlin, that was impressive. He had tried for years to do that, wiggling his face in the mirror, but had never gotten the hang of it.

“You don’t want to,” she repeated flatly.

“I don’t want to because… I am… allergic to scones,” he finished lamely. She stared at him again.

“Well, then, what about pancakes, or a muffin? I get a hankering for breakfast food this late in the evening.”

“I… can’t do that either.”

“Don’t say you’re allergic to all breakfast food,” said Lily, mirth in her voice, and James mentally worked on taking his foot out of his mouth.

“No, I just can’t… because of…”

“Because food is one of the Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration?” asked Lily sweetly, and James couldn't stop his jaw from dropping open.

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Several minutes later, a plate of date-walnut scones in front of him that Lily had received from a prim-faced woman who carried it in on a literal silver platter, James was still speechless.

“You can have some, I’m assuming you aren’t really allergic to scones, unless you’re gluten intolerant, in which case, I’m so sorry.” Lily was munching happily on one, looking friendlier with food in hand. James shook off his shock and leaned forward, propping his hands on his knees.

“Are you a witch?” he asked, not caring how his words came out at a higher pitch than normal. More questions came stumbling out, faster and blurted. “Did you go to Hogwarts? You couldn’t have gone to Hogwarts, I would’ve known… So you knew about magic and were just putting me on? Is that why you’re Prime Minister, to infiltrate the muggle world?”

Lily smiled and pushed the platter of scones towards him, reminding James irresistibly of Professor McGonagall force-feeding him ginger cookies when he was being an idiot.

“I’m not a witch,” she said, holding her hand up and halting the onslaught of his ramblings. “But my sister is. As a muggleborn, she was studying all these textbooks and histories before starting Hogwarts, and I’m a big nerd, so I would study them with her and read them on my own. No, I’m not infiltrating the muggle world, I’ve lived an entirely muggle life except for brief forays into my sister’s world.”

James couldn’t hold his question in and interrupted her. “Who’s your sister?” he asked. “Maybe I know her.”

Lily’s smile grew even broader. “I doubt you’d know her, she stuck to the quiet people.” Lily’s eyes roved over him briefly. “And you don’t seem like quiet people.”

James opened his mouth to argue, then closed it before he proved her right. He was rewarded by the graceful motion of her rolling her eyes.

“Petunia Evans?” Lily paused to read the response of James’s face. “She was a Hufflepuff.”

“I don’t know her,” James admitted. He tried and failed to stop his chest from puffing out. “I was a Gryffindor.” 

“Oh, one of those,” Lily said, one side of her mouth slanting upwards sardonically. “I’ve heard stories about Gryffindors, running amok and pranking ghosts with singing tulips and setting tapestries on fire and turning the floors purple.”

“Okay, some of that was me,” James said. He had been leaning forward so his torso was bent over the desk. Embarrassed, he rebounded into the back of his chair, and scratched the base of his neck. “The purple floors were my mate Remus, though. Never quite figured out why he did that.”

Lily suddenly collapsed into a fit of giggles with her face pressed against the desk. “Your _face,”_ she said, muffled by her arms. “When I said Gamp’s Law. It was unimaginably hysterical.”

“I don’t know why you had to make me look like a fool,” he protested, his face growing warm. “You could’ve just said you knew everything from the beginning.”

“You said you were allergic to scones!” Still giggling, Lily picked her face back up from the desk. Her cheeks were red from the effort of containing her laughter, her eyes green with mirth, and James was hit by the sudden pang of observing that she was very pretty. Beautiful, really, with her mature plaits and freckles splashed across her forehead and, alright, her tits, which were right there and rather nice. Then he realized that this was the Muggle Prime Minister he was ogling, and he gave his head a quick shake to get rid of the thoughts that were threatening to spill over.

“How has the job been treating you so far?” he asked, finally giving in and taking a scone. Lily was still calming down from her laughter attack, and her smile didn’t falter, but he could see the way that her eyes changed. Like before, he noted that she looked tired.

“It’s overwhelming,” she admitted, then her eyes darted to a cabinet in the corner. “Hell, it’s nighttime. What do you say we have a proper drink?”

James thought of the lads, who were waiting at their shared flat — he had refused to move out when he got elected, given that his friends were all working on his staff anyway — and then looked back at Lily, who was gazing at him with a certain sparkly curiosity, and so he answered with, “Sure, maybe just one.”

Three bourbons later, James figured he had to make an effort to leave. “I should probably go,” he said, standing up and instantly going all wobbly. Lily snorted and tossed back her drink, looser but still proper in her blazer and plaits. 

“I wouldn’t peg you for a lightweight,” she said, and it was a sign of how drunk he was that he almost said “Would you peg me?” in response. Merlin, he was a tosser, and a horny one at that. Not that he was horny about the Muggle Prime Minister, even with her tits. He was just a bit washy.

“It’s been a long week,” he offered as an excuse, and frowned as Lily stood up with him. “Are you coming with me?”

Lily threw her head back and gave a short laugh. “Christ, wizards don’t drink as much as muggles do, then? I’m standing up to give you a professional goodbye, and also to say this.” She put her glass down and craned her neck to try and match James’s height. It was a lost cause; he towered over her even in his crookedy, tipsy state. 

“Yes?” he asked, because it seemed that she was figuring out her words. She leveled her gaze at him, and he felt, while entirely clothed, somehow bare and vulnerable before her.

“Thank you for coming by for this social introduction,” she began. James marveled at how she seemed so dynamic and in control when it was him who actually called the meeting and had information to share. On second thought, he realized that he actually quite respected her. It was easy to do so when she seemed so capable. Of course, he also had a history of liking powerful women. Her voice broke through his reverie, and he realized belatedly that she had asked him a question.

“Sorry?”

“I asked when you will be back to start business,” she said. “I have a lot I want to talk to you about, politically.”

“Oh,” he said dumbly. No one had ever warned him that the Muggle Prime Minister would want to see him again (it was often the opposite). However, he had a flash of feeling in his stomach that liked the idea of seeing Lily again, and so he said a multitude of bollocks, mostly along the line of using the portrait to schedule another meeting, as long as no other muggles were in the room.

“Good, then,” she said.

“What’s a professional goodbye?”

“This,” she said, with a smile, as she leaned to her tiptoes, straightened his glasses, and then shoved his shoulders back with a decidedly strong grip. “Get out of my office, Potter.”

The Floo was lit with green flames, but it didn’t come close to mimicking the vivid color of her eyes.

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“Looks like Prongsie got a head start,” Sirius called over his shoulder into the flat, greeting James at the door with a look of befuddlement. “Did you drink with the Muggle P.M.?”

“Not enough to drown out this week,” answered James. He stepped inside and closed the door with a grunt. It had been warm earlier in the week, and the wood had swelled inside the door frame. 

Peter was already sitting in the living room, and so James plopped himself on the opposite end, taking his glasses off for a second to rub his eyes.

“How was it?” Remus asked, bringing over three bottles of firewhisky and dropping onto the couch between James and Peter. Sirius went into the kitchen and started making noise.

“Weird.” James unscrewed the top and took a long pull from his bottle. “She knew about magic, man. Her sister was at Hogwarts with us.”

Remus hummed a non-response into his bottle, and when James turned to look at him, he saw that Remus was trying to hide a smile. James gasped, affronted. 

“You _knew?_ And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Figured you’d make a fool of yourself anyway,” said Remus, dodging the punch aimed his way. “No, I actually didn’t make the connection until today, I promise.”

“Good thing Evans was so bloody lovely about it,” James mulled, taking another grouchy sip. Remus quirked his eyebrows in his peripheral vision and James rolled his eyes back into his head. “What?”

“She’s lovely, then?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sirius appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, wiping his hand with a dishrag. “Who’s lovely?”

“James is into the Muggle Prime Minister,” said Remus. This time his reflexes were not as quick, and James’s palm collided with his shoulder. “Ouch.”

“Am not!” James protested, narrowing his eyes at Remus. “But I would’ve appreciated advance notice that she was fit, especially from a friend whom I keep in my employment.”

“The Muggle P.M. is fit?” asked Sirius gleefully.

Remus, after a sidelong look at James’s hands — both wrapped around his drink — said, “One hundred percent Prongs’s type. Ginger, smiley, wickedly smart.”

James found he couldn’t argue with that, and sunk deeper into the couch cushions. “She wants to talk politics next week though, and I’m worried about what it is she wants to discuss.”

Sirius walked over and dropped onto Remus’s knee, stretching out across the three of them. 

“Ugh,” said Peter, leaning away from Sirius’s sock-clad feet. “Why do I always get stuck with his toes?”

“Well, Prongs gets my face, because he’s my favorite,” Sirius said, letting James play with his hair, about which he was very vain. “And Moony gets my most important appendage, because _he’s_ my favorite.”

Remus looked down at Sirius’s crotch, which was directly resting on his lap. “Gross.”

“And that leaves my feet, Peter, which I bestow upon you because _you’re_ my favorite and I know how much you like feet.”

Peter made a noise of disgust. “Why do I even bother asking?”

“Can we go back to talking about me?” James said, aware that he was being whiny and not really minding. “What am I going to do about Evans?”

Sirius stuck his tongue out at James from where his head was resting, still in his lap, then paused and looked thoughtful. “Evans?”

“Yeah, Lily Evans.” James stared at his near-empty bottle and contemplated another one. Then Sirius jolted and James reflexively pulled his knees to his chest. A second later, Sirius on the floor after a bit of hullabaloo, James nursing a bottle-inflicted tender spot on his chin, Remus sighed and muttered something about idiots. 

“What was that about?” asked Peter, almost a moment too late. He alone had avoided any bodily harm by scurrying to the top of the couch and tucking his arms in.

“But… we know an Evans!” said Sirius triumphantly. The rest of them only stared. Gaze flitting between the three of them like watching a tennis match, Sirius gestured for emphasis. “Petunia Evans. She must have been our year at Hogwarts, I think!”

“The name didn’t sound familiar,” said James, wracking his memory. “Evans — er, Minister Evans — said she was a Hufflepuff, and bloody if I knew a single Hufflepuff.”

“It’s a shame, Hufflepuff girls were awfully good snoggers,” said Sirius, lost in thought. “And Moony lost his virginity to that Hufflepuff Caradoc Dearborn, so I think we all can thank Helga Hufflepuff for the sexual exploits and education of the Marauders.”

Remus flushed immediately, irremediably red. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about Caradick ever again.” 

“Why not, dearest Moony?” asked Sirius, giving two quick pats to Remus’s knee. Remus gave him a Look which quieted Sirius immediately, even going as far as to look apologetic, which was a rare and savorable thing.

“Petunia!” said Peter suddenly, still perched atop the couch back. “She was always sticking around Snape, wasn’t she?”

“What?” cried James, sure it couldn’t be true, but nestled in the rose-tinted memories of the halls of Hogwarts was the vaguest hint of a blond-haired girl of the horsey, sallowy type.

“I think they grew up together.” Remus shrugged. “Just a guess.”

That certainly complicated things, if the Muggle Prime Minister’s sister had parroted any of Snape’s blood purity nonsense to her, although he wasn’t sure if that would’ve happened, given Petunia’s own blood status. Still, he saw his fair amount of muggleborn blood purists nevertheless, blood purity being a dangerous trend he had run his campaign against. Settled then, James launched himself off the couch and staggered to the kitchen, leaving an impression of his bum in the seat cushions. 

“You good?” Sirius called after him, and had James been more clear-minded, he might have detected a hint of concern. James grabbed the bottle and leaned against the wall right before the threshold of the living room.

“I’m wondering if I should’ve been more concerned about appearing politically powerful,” he mused. “Or less wishy washy.”

“Hear hear,” said Sirius, who had stolen James’s spot on the couch in a flash. “Go to her next week and establish yourself as a man not to be messed with.”

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The next morning, James awoke without so much as a headache, which he took as an immeasurable display of good luck. The rest of his friends were not so lucky — Peter was passed out on the couch after a misguided shot of tequila, Sirius was asleep like a log in his bed on the opposite wall across the room from James’s, and when James entered the kitchen on his way back from a morning jog, Remus was microwaving frozen hash browns with a weary sort of grimace.

The weekend went by in a blur. After a nice start, James took the rest of Saturday as time for himself, spending most of it playing cards with Sirius and journaling under the weight of his blankets. Then, to atone for the sin of self-care, James spent Sunday in a panic preparing for the upcoming week. Remus proved to be a genuine lifesaver around noon, whipping up a pumpkin pasta sauce for fettuccine al dente while quizzing James on the ins-and-outs of Romania’s policies for dragon imports and breeding. 

Monday morning came around even sooner than his Mondays in school, and James put on a fake smile and went begrudgingly to all seven of his meetings.

“What’s up?” asked Sirius, standing in front of James’s desk. James, who hadn’t heard him creep up, jolted and spilled his ink bottle all over his desk.

“Shit,” he said, reaching for his wand to siphon the ink off before it dried.

Sirius picked up a piece of ink-drenched unreadable parchment. “Sorry. What was this before you spilled?”

James craned his head at the paper. “Letter to Dumbledore,” he said. “You can toss that.”

“You don’t need the sage advice of Albus Dumbledore?” Sirius leaned his hip against the desk. 

“Not yet.” 

“Prongs, you good?” Sirius bent his head to be at James’s level. “You can normally hear me clunking in from eons away.”

The truth was, James had been thinking about Lily Evans again. There was an insistent thought running through his head that she somehow wanted something from him, but he wasn’t sure what that thing was. She was smart, and obviously pretty, but James wasn’t naive. He was the Minister of Magic. She had to have an agenda, and although a tiny tiny adolescent-sounding voice was telling his brain that he would let her have an agenda with him, he was not going to screw up in his job just because of a beautiful woman. 

“Just thinking.” He gave a half shrug. “I think I’m going to be home late tonight — I should front load this meeting with Evans, yeah?”

“Alright.” Sirius gave him another calculated surveying look. “Good luck.”

After lunch, James poked his head into the portrait room and asked the painting of Gamp to ask Lily if it would be okay for him to swing by later that day. He got an affirmative response within minutes.

Peter was his dinner mate that evening, rolling up with a carton of kung pao tofu. Pete wasn’t vegetarian or anything — he just liked tofu more than any other person James knew. After Peter left, James took a few minutes to clean up his desk, sweeping used napkins and scraps of paper into his dustbin, and then he shrugged his robes back on — the nice ones, with green trim — and made his way to the portrait room.

“Evening, Minister,” Gamp’s portrait greeted him. “Shall I tell her you’re ready?”

“Yep.”

James fidgeted in the meantime, attempting to flatten his hair (it didn’t work). When Gamp returned and the fireplace burned green, James stepped through with only a slight increase in his heart rate. 

“Hello.” 

“Hello,” replied Lily from her desk. Her hair was down today, hanging like a curtain over her ears. James sat in the chair in front of her desk as before. This time, Lily didn’t call for scones or alcohol; instead, she put her head in her hand and tilted it sleepily.

“You look tired,” he said, and it wasn’t an insult. 

“So do you.”

“Mondays are hard.” He stretched his arms above his head and back down again. “How are you settling in? Second week and all.”

“It’s okay so far.” Lily took her bottom lip between her teeth and twisted it. “I haven’t supremely fudged anything up, so far so good.”

“I’ve never paid too much attention to muggle politics,” James admitted, and Lily offered him a sardonic smile. “Do you have much to do in the get go or is there a transitional period?”  
“It feels like I’ve had to jump right in. But I did get elected in a special election, so there’s more…” Here Lily paused, trying to find the right word. “Drama.”

James knew that he was young — really young — for his job, but somehow Lily seemed even more young and fresh. Maybe it was some internalized sexism, where Lily’s rosy red cheeks and youthful exuberance when eating scones somehow indicated that she wasn’t ready to govern, but James actually saw her as extremely capable. Sure, he hadn’t watched her sign a policy into law, or make a speech before Parliament, but she had drawn him into casual relationship with her so easily that he knew she had one of the most important skills for a Minister: the ability to listen and still get her point across.

And yet, when Lily said ‘drama,’ James was acutely aware he did not know her story. When they had met the first time, they had talked for well over an hour about little things, like good business slacks and Hogwarts’ poltergeist, Peeves, who had once dropped a bucket of green paint onto Lily’s sister. 

He wondered if he would learn about Lily’s past and her political aspirations, or if it would be like the last Muggle P.M., who was very old and hated James because of _his_ predecessor’s patronizations. 

Lily was looking at him expectantly, and James realized he had missed a question from her. “Sorry?”

“I was just saying how you wiggled your way out of doing magic last time,” said Lily, leaning back and surveying James with an almost Dumbledorian gaze. 

“You intentionally stumped me!” James retorted, and he had to bite back the grin that was threatening to split his face.

“Well, I’d love to see you do something today,” Lily said. She glanced to her left at a picture frame, which James would’ve bet anything was a photo of Lily and her sister. “Tuney always said that everyone had a different style of magic. It would be cool to see yours.”

“Sure,” said James, without hesitation, because an ever-growing voice in his head was insistent to prove himself before this woman. He slipped his wand out of its holster on his hip and waved it. A stream of bubbles flowed out of the end of his wand, but his eyes were on Lily, who looked bemused.

“Nice.”

“Thanks.”

They sat in silence for a moment, thought it was anything but awkward. Instead, it felt natural, even dynamic. Then Lily spoke.

“I have some requirements for you, for our professional relationship, bridging the magical and non-magical communities.” She spoke like a true politician, tone and pitch reminiscent of gaudy speeches to the people, for the people. James was enraptured by the effort of it, how Lily was able to switch into a political persona at the drop of a hat. That was what James found most difficult. He was a _Gryffindor,_ Merlin’s sake. He wore his heart on his sleeve and his thoughts on his face. But here was Lily, one week into her term, speaking like a practiced and seasoned professional. 

“What are your requirements?” James asked. “And can I have requirements for you?”

“Of course, this should be a mutual exchange of responsibilities. You still haven’t briefed me on what it is you would be asking of me.”

“You didn’t give me a chance last time!”

“Oh, because no one has ever explained their job while drinking with a colleague.” Lily was smirking and James was smirking back, both of them slightly out of breath from the rapport. Lily was quick, and James liked that about her. 

“Nicely said, Minister Evans.” James also liked the way her eyes flashed and cheeks colored when he addressed her. “I don’t require anything too demanding of you. I’ll need your permission to import dangerous creatures, like dragons, and of course I will alert you of any attacks against muggles, that sort of thing.”

“Will there be attacks against muggles?” Lily looked drawn, imploring. “My sister… well, she’s about as involved in wizarding society as I am. She doesn’t tell me much. But I know that there is a rising tension… I’ve heard her concern for prominent voices in the government… but I could tell, even if she didn’t tell me directly, that she was relieved by your election.” Another pause. “Is this a fair assessment?”

“Very fair.” James twirled his wand between his fingers, a tactile habit he had developed years previously. “I graduated from Hogwarts about a decade ago, and then there was a brief war, too short to even call a war, really. There were deaths and fear and quite a lot of anti-muggle sentiment.”

“Did you fight?” James wasn’t sure what answer Lily was looking for, but when he nodded, she sank back in her chair, looking like she had guessed correctly. “I had assumed as much. Must not have been that hard getting elected, you being a fit war hero and all.”

James laughed then, a real laugh that was mirrored by Lily, both of them laughing like they were friends.

“Lots there to contend,” he said. “Not sure everyone agrees that I’m fit, although thank you for noticing, and I am not a war hero. It was little Neville Longbottom, not even a toddler, who ended up defeating Voldemort.” The near death of Frank and Alice, and the actual death of Neville's grandmother, Augusta, lay unspoken, but not unacknowledged, in his mind. “And it was pretty hard to be elected, some of it because I ran on a pro-muggle platform and I’m three decades younger than the one before me. But you have to have faced that problem too, right?”

“Getting elected in my twenties? Of course.” Lily laughed, but this one was smaller than before. 

“Clearly not too hard for you, though.” Yes, James was aware he was flirting. Just a little though! Nothing incriminating. 

But Lily didn’t quite rise to the bait. “I mean, it was difficult.” She forced out a shorter laugh that didn’t spread to her eyes. “I think it was easier for my party because they expect me to fail.”  
“What!?” James had half risen out of his chair. “What do you mean?”

“It’s this whole theory of the Glass Cliff.” Lily was using her fingers to trace shapes upside down on the desk between them. “About how women are more likely to take leadership roles like Prime Minister or President during or after times of crisis when the potential of failure is at its highest.” Lily propped two fingers up like fingers and walked them across the desk, then mimicking falling off the edge. “I dunno. Maybe I’m being cynical.”

“You’re not going to fail.”

“What do you know?”

“You’re not going to fail.” This felt like the most important point James had ever had to convey in his life, more than convincing Remus to let his friends accompany him on full moon nights, more than when he had to break up with Emmie Vance in fifth year, more than arguing with Sirius about the Order of the Phoenix. “I just know it! You’re smart, obviously, and capable, and confident!”

“Well, thank you for saying all that,” said Lily, waving him off with a slight flush to her cheeks. “Anyway, that’s not at all what I meant to say to you tonight. Um, give me a minute.”

James sat there as Lily closed her eyes and regrouped. Like, she took a moment, silent, in front of him, to physically reset the conversation.

It was the most incredible thing James had ever witnessed.

“Okay. Right. My stipulations for us working together.” Lily opened her eyes again, and James was hit by the greenness of them. “I want to know what is going on in the wizarding world, more than just wars and dragons.”

“Works for me.”

Lily smiled and mimed checking off a point on an invisible checklist. “I want to be able to work with you on legislation that deals with muggles. I don’t feel comfortable with wizards erasing muggle memories left and right without any sort of documentation — don’t make that face, you know it’s true — I think that it should be a more formal process. Muggles have rights, you know.”

Some of the rest of her ideas were more difficult to swallow. She wasn’t asking to announce the presence of magic to the whole world, or anything like that, but she wanted a presence in policy, to inform or advise him, and it felt close to a conflict of interest. He promised her he would take her ideas to his team (namely, Remus, who would have opinions, probably).

“I have one last stipulation.” Lily tilted her head at James, who mimicked the motion just to see her smile. “I want to see your office. It’s only fair.”

James opened his mouth then closed it again. He was going to immediately refuse her, sure that there were a million bylaws about preventing the Muggle Prime Minister from entering the Ministry of Magic, much less the Minister of Magic’s office, but then he found that he really, desperately wanted Lily to see his office, and his desk, and he was _tired_ of the tensions and protections around magic. Lily wasn’t calling for anything major, like ending the Statute of Secrecy or for every Muggle to have a tour, and so James found he had no resistance to the idea. 

“Okay,” he said, and Lily rewarded him with a broad smile and flash of teeth. “But we’ll have to figure out the logistics of getting you there. I’m not sure how the Muggle media will respond to you walking into an abandoned phone booth and then disappearing.”

“Is that the entrance?” Lily looked bemused. “That’s very classy.”  
“That’s the visitor entrance,” James said, quick to defend. “But we can’t have you Floo or Apparate.”

“Really?” asked Lily. “I would think you could side-along Apparate a muggle, based on the theory. My not having a wand wouldn’t necessarily stop you from your Three D: destination, determination, deliberation.”

James thought, for a wild, crazy moment, that he would kiss her. 

“You’ve memorized the Three Ds of Apparation,” he said, half question and half statement, a small smile creeping across his face faster than the pop of a wizard’s disapparation. “You’d make a bloody good witch.” James wished he knew he had messed up the second he said it, but it took until Lily’s face twisted into something like offense that he realized what he said. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive for me to say.”

“It’s only insensitive if you think being a witch is superior than being a muggle.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

Lily rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. “But you also didn’t _not_ mean that,” she said. “And that’s the real distinction, right?”

James left shortly after, not quite on bad terms but certainly colder than their interactions had been up until that point. 

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James was back the very next evening with peace offerings: a plate of vegan scones (another Peter experiment, this one successful) and a draft of a piece of legislation that would require a representative from the Department of Magical Education to accompany muggleborns’ Hogwarts letters to answer questions and introduce the family to the magical world. Lily immediately countered with a request for all Ministry jobs to require a passing OWL score in Muggle Studies, to which James promised further research.

They worked out a rhythm, from then on. James would pop by every few days, at least once a week, usually bearing pastries of varying quality, and Lily would introduce him to her ideas or plans. He gleaned knowledge about her job and her past in these meetings. She had been jealous when her sister went off to Hogwarts, but was highly successful in her schooling, acing her exams after skipping ahead by two class years and heading off to (from what he could assume from her underselling tone) a fancy and prestigious university, where she studied public policy and graduated early. She somehow ran a campaign for local representative while finishing her studies, and was elected to office three days after receiving her diploma. It was impossible to understand her jump in political clout, and Lily didn’t give in to his incessant questioning. She was forthcoming about herself and her flaws but seemed to want to avoid talking about her strengths. But he could read between the lines and discerned an awe-inspiring ascension to muggle Britain’s top office.

It was like magic. _She_ was magic. And James’s friends, mainly Sirius, started giving him very knowing looks whenever he talked about her with them, which was often.

“Oh come _on_ ,” James finally said one day when Sirius had rolled his eyes as soon as he brought up Lily’s very smart method of wearing green to bring out her eyes when meeting with non-profit donors. 

“What?” said Sirius with fake outrage. He widened his eyes across the kitchen at Remus, who was going to town on a cold roast beef sandwich and did not notice Sirius’s reaction. 

“Why’d you roll your eyes?”

“You’re being dumb!”

“Wha—” Now James was the one who looked to Remus for backup. Remus, cognizant of the silence, looked up mid-bite. “How am I being dumb?”

“You’re in love with your muggle counterpart!” said Sirius. He had started gesturing wildly. “The _Muggle Prime Minister,_ James. How is that _not_ dumb!”

“I’m not in _love_ with her,” James protested. “Remus, come on.”

“I think Sirius is just saying that you talk about her quite a lot,” said Remus. “Is there mustard in the fridge?”

“No,” James grumbled, leaning his back against the counter and ridding his mind's-eye of red and green. “Peter used the rest of the mustard when he made deviled eggs yesterday.”

Sirius pondered this. “For a wannabe vegan, Pete sure eats a lot of eggs.”

James was not in _love_ with Prime Minister Lily bloody Evans. He wasn’t even in ‘ _like’_ with her. It was just that he was impressed by her, and he liked spending time with her, even when they were just working on memos in silence. And he enjoyed watching her face when she was soft, like when she spoke about her first ambitions in politics, which were aimed at addressing inequality for Britain’s children through increased funding for afterschool programs. Although he enjoyed seeing her just as much when she wasn’t soft, like when she ranted about right-wing drivel or pureblood rhetoric, the anti-immigrant bullshit and dumb politics. He even liked when she was listening to his own rants and rambles, the way she would nod along when she agreed with him. 

Oh, bollocks, maybe he had a tiny tiny crush on the Muggle Prime Minister. Shit.

And of course, Lily being as brilliant as she was, James didn’t get to hide this newfound discovery for very long.

The two of them were working quietly — Lily on a press statement regarding this month’s personal financial expenditures, James on a letter to the Hogwarts Board of Governors — when Lily broke the silence. 

“Should we talk about it?”

“About what?” James put down his quill, which he still used even though Lily had teased him relentlessly about it. James held steadfast to the belief that quills were the superior ink instrument.

“About the fact you have a crush on me?”

 _Uh._ “What? I don’t have a crush on you.” James cleared his throat and tried to stop himself from flushing red. 

“Oh, I shouldn’t have assumed…” Lily trailed off, and looked as awkward as James felt. “It’s just that I’m normally rather clever about reading into these kinds of things.”

James let out an exhale. “No, you’re right, I can’t pull off denying it.” He fidgeted with his parchment. 

“I’m very flattered,” said Lily, which was an awfully painful way to start a rejection. James tried to look anywhere but her face, but found his eyes magnetized to hers. She looked earnest, wringing her hands near her chest. “I really am. It’s just… not a good idea.” 

“What’s not a good idea?” James heard his heartbeat in his ears but pressed on. “I mean, it’s just a crush. I’ll get over it soon, I’m sure.” This was a lie, but Lily didn’t need to know that. She must be uncomfortable enough as it is.

Lily opened her mouth and then closed it, a habit James had done enough times to know that she was fumbling for words. “It’s not a good idea for us to have anything but a professional relationship.”

James heard the words that Lily was saying, but what he also heard was an indication that his feelings might be reciprocated. 

“Why not?” He couldn’t help himself from asking, even though he knew he was digging himself deeper into a hole. “We’re both professionals, we have boundaries.”

Lily glanced at his mouth and back up to his eyes as soon as she realized she was caught. “James…” That — her saying his name — was what did him in. 

James surged forward and Lily stood to meet him, noses crashing into each other momentarily before Lily caught his jaw with one hand and kissed him. James’s hands sank to her hips, pulling her against the desk. Lily’s hand cupped his cheek and the other one pulled at his hair, eliciting a groan that he didn’t have the energy to restrain.

“Wait,” Lily breathed, pulling away and resting her forehand on his chest, his hands resting at her sides, hers still in his hair. James couldn’t wipe the infatuated grin off his face — being kissed by a beautiful woman always made him giddy — but when she unpeeled herself from his torso, she was unsmiling.

“Lily,” he said, and caught her hands before they could fully leave his body.

“What good would come of it?” Lily’s face was flushed and her lips red, but her tone was all seriousness. “I’d fall for you and have to give up my political career and the world I’ve known just to be with someone whose lifestyle is predicated on their world’s superiority to mine?” Seeing James’s face, Lily winced. “Oh, sorry, that was supposed to be partially a joke, but it came out sounding like… the truth.” 

James felt a pain in his stomach. “Is that what you really think of me?” He was still holding her hands, and upon examination, they were just as beautiful as the rest of her. He kissed one of them impulsively, and Lily’s eyelids fluttered shut. He kissed her knuckles, the pads of her fingers, her palm, the inside of her wrist.

“James,” she said, sharp but not unyielding, and James kissed her other hand. “I’m serious. We cannot do this.”  
“Do what?” asked James, knowing he was being petulant. “Because I think we’re doing this very well.”

Lily let him kiss her hands, but when he moved his face towards hers again she laughed and evaded his mouth. “Seriously. What are you thinking? That we can go on dates and shag each other and then go govern our respective societies? That’s bullshit, James, and you know it.”

The thing is, James did know it. There wasn’t a written code of ethics, but he was pretty sure that sleeping with the Muggle Prime Minister threatened his position. It’s just that generalized and sweeping rules like that didn’t take into consideration his feelings — not only his feelings for Lily, but also feeling that he would not compromise on his role just because of her. She had been asking him for favors, but even those he granted were because they were good ideas, not because he thought she was sexy. Though she was sexy, and he did think that.

“Okay,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “We’ll take it slow. That’s cool.”

“Get out of my office,” she said, but it was with a smile on her face and a roll of her eyes. He dipped his head for one last kiss, which she didn’t allow, but she did allow him to ruffle her hair affectionately before heading through the Floo.

The portrait of Gamp gave James an annoying look when he returned, but James — filled with Lily’s laughter — was inoculated against it. 

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“Woah,” said Remus, half a second after James apparated into the living room. “You kissed her?”

“HOW do you DO that, Moony?” asked Peter with awe in his voice from the couch. James just shook his head and made his way to his bedroom. Sirius was already under the covers, but was flipping through a thick novel. James undressed and put on his pajama pants, then sat at the end of his bed and groaned.

“What?” asked Sirius, turning the page. 

“Just regretting a lot of things.” James keeled backwards until his head hit the mattress and Sirius was no longer in view.

“You wanna talk about it?”

James rolled over, facing the wall, and buried his head in the pillow. “I’m just being an idiot, like you all said.”

“Right.”

There was a pause where nothing was audible except for the rustling of pages. Then James felt the unmistakable sagging of his mattress as Sirius crawled onto his bed to join him. James twisted his body around to face Sirius, both lying on their sides like a slumber party.

“You’re being very nice,” James said finally. “Uncharacteristically, one might say.”

“Who would say that?” asked Sirius, sliding his legs under the comforter and holding it up for James to join. “Being nice is an essential tenet of my character.”

James laughed, because Sirius was looking so earnest, then allowed him to snuggle together. Sirius wrapped one arm around him and James nuzzled up against his friend’s chest.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” mumbled James. Sirius took a moment to carefully extract James’s glasses and put them on the bedside table — the number of times that James broke his glasses while rolling around with his friends was well over fifty — then wrapped his other arm around James as well.

“With Evans or with your job?”

“Both.” 

“I don’t know about Evans, but I know that you’ve been overwhelmed at the Ministry, but you’re still getting adjusted, and it’s normal to feel weird during the transitional times.” Sirius paused to see if James would respond, and when he didn’t Sirius resumed his pep talk. “You’re the smartest guy in three decades in the Minister’s office, and you’ve got Moony and Wormtail and me to help out, and you’ll adjust. I promise.”

“Thanks.” James felt like a small load had been lifted off him. “You’re very cuddly tonight.”

“I hit a sad chapter in my book.” When Sirius shifted later on, maybe to return to his own bed, James asked him to stay a bit longer, and like a good brother, Sirius stayed.

James didn’t visit 10 Downing Street for another 10 days. 

It wasn’t just out of embarrassment about his feelings, although there was a little of that. The beginning of October just happened to bring an onslaught of meetings, each more pressing and intense than the last. He also presided over his first Wizengamot full court trial, a responsibility that he silently resolved to divorce from the Minister’s role as quickly as possible, for ethical concerns. 

Through the ten days, even though he didn’t see her, his thoughts were filled with Lily. James had never been one to really obsess over a crush, and it wasn’t quite what was happening here either; instead, he was realizing the scope of his friendship with her. When he ate lunch in Hogsmeade after touring Hogwarts with the Board of Directors, he was thinking about when Lily had grilled him about the mechanics and offerings of Honeydukes. After a particularly rigorous debate with the head of the Department of Transportation, James remembered how Lily had been in the debating society at her university. Staring at a stop sign as he took a stroll around the Ministry building, his mind was flooded with her red hair. 

But James withheld any messages or visits to Lily because he needed to get his head screwed on straight. If he wanted to pursue a relationship with her — which, he really did want — he couldn’t be as impulsive as he was the last time he saw her. 

Besides, she hadn’t reached out to him either, so he wanted to give her time to think. Or maybe she decided she hated him and that he was a creep. Either way, he was giving her space.

October 26th was a crisp and autumnal Monday morning. James was drinking out of a cup of steaming pumpkin cider and was cloaked in a deep brown sweater that brought out his eyes, according to Remus. It was calm, rare for the beginning of the week, and James savored the moment and the drink.

“Minister?” Marlene poked her head through the doorway to James’s office. James snorted.

“Since when have you called me anything but James?” he asked. “Except for Jim when you think I’m being naughty or annoying.” 

Marlene didn’t take the bait, nor did she even smile (or glare, which was perhaps a more probable reaction). “Moody is here, but he doesn’t have an appointment. He says it’s urgent.” 

Marlene had the otherworldly ability to bring joy to even the most serious of situations, so the gravity with which she spoke now was concerning. Moody, on the other hand, rarely played the game with assistants or bureaucracy and was prone to beating James back to his office after an Auror’s update. After working together in the Order of the Phoenix, James often thought of Marlene’s brightness as an unstoppable force meeting the immovable object of Mad-Eye’s stoicism.

“Tell him he can come in,” said James, still puzzled at the change in both of their behavior.

Mad-Eye Moody entered the room with a clunk and a huff, limping slightly, his grizzled face still remarkable. If James hadn’t been on half a dozen overnight stake out missions with Moody, or if Moody hadn’t practically begged James in trying to recruit him for the Auror service, than maybe James would’ve still been a bit afraid of him, the way he was when they first met his last year of Hogwarts, but all of that had happened, so there wasn’t any use in fearing him.

“What’s wrong, Mad-Eye?” James asked, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his thighs. 

Moody was blunt and straight to the point, which James always respected about him. “We’re dealing with Dark wizards,” he grunted, shifting his weight on the chair. “The Muggle Prime Minister was attacked this morning on her way to a meeting with the German delegation.”

James was aware that he had stood up at the news, and perhaps even spoken, but there was a buzzing in his ears that threatened his sense of hearing.

Moody was still talking. “She was conscious and alert through the whole event, so we sent Alice over to take her testimony after the Healers were done with her. She said that two men in masks obstructed her path and used the Cruciatus Curse on her, along with some other spells that she didn’t recognize or know. Her bodyguard was Stunned. She was bleeding out but called her sister, who sent an urgent owl to my office. Aurors and Healers were able to be there within five minutes, although the wizards responsible had already left. There were three muggles present besides the bodyguard, all of them staying with her until help arrived. An Oblivator wiped all four of their memories, although the Minister would not let him leave until he had documented it thoroughly.”

James, who had made a sound suspiciously close to a sob, found himself in the moment laughing. Rowena Bloody Ravenclaw, Lily had the gall to enforce paperwork policies while recovering from being literally tortured. 

“Where is she?” James demanded, swinging his coat off the back of his chair and his voice sounding watery. “St. Mungo’s?” 

“No,” said Moody, eye whizzing around his head. “She went back to her office to talk with Alice. Alice sent a letter about 20 minutes ago with the information, but she’s probably still there.

James left the room with Moody still talking, which was unconscionably rude but also completely forgivable given the circumstances.

He didn’t even speak to Gamp’s portrait, instead stepping through the portrait room fireplace without a second thought.

He burst through the fireplace in Lily’s office, sputtering a bit for air, to see Lily and a woman who wasn’t Alice with their heads ducked close together, whispered with insistent tones.

“Oh!” James said, startling — he didn’t mean to burst in on Lily and an advisor or assistant or any other muggle whom he would have to explain away with regards to the Floo, but both women straightened up in unison and James realized that the unknown woman must have been Petunia Evans.

Petunia’s hair was a dark blond, though when it caught the light it looked a little red (nothing like Lily’s vibrant auburn). Her face shared similarities with Lily’s, but was far more stern as she looked at James with intense disapproval.

But James didn’t come to return Petunia’s gaze of daggers. He strode forward and caught Lily’s hands in his hands, his eyes darting over her visible skin for signs of scars or bruising. 

“I’m fine,” said Lily, trying to brush him aside, but James pulled her into a hug. She smelled like citrus and jasmine and smoke, and when he relinquished her from his grasp, her green eyes were rimmed with red. 

A cough reminded them of Petunia’s presence, and Lily peered over James’s arm, still in his radius of physical closeness. 

“Hi,” said James. Petunia sniffed.

“This is my sister,” said Lily. “Tuney, this is James Potter.”

“I know,” said Petunia, glowering. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” James reluctantly let go of Lily to face the two of them fully. “I just heard… about the attack. I couldn’t wait to… I had to… I thought Alice would be here?” He ended with a question, looking at Lily. 

Lily leaned her back against the wood-paneled wall behind her desk. “You just missed her. Tuney got here a couple minutes ago for moral support.” Then something in her eyes shifted and she tilted her head at him. “You’ve been ignoring me.”

“What!” he squawked, even though she was partially right. “I… I thought I was giving you space!”

“You never asked whether I needed space or not!” said Lily angrily. “I don’t have any way of contacting you, did you realize that? I shouted for the stupid man in the painting and he didn’t respond!”

James gaped. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Of course!” Now Lily was the one gesticulating. “I believe in communication, James, it’s not that hard to understand!” 

“Forget it, Lily,” came Petunia’s voice, hardened and snarky. “He obviously doesn’t care about you.”

“WHAT!” James yelled indignantly. “I obviously _do_ care about her, enough to give her space because I thought she would need it!”

“You don’t know what she needs!”  
“Petunia,” Lily interjected. “Can you get us some tea? From Mrs. Haywether?”

“Fine.” Petunia shot James a look before leaving, and James leaned his hips back against Lily’s desk. When Lily turned back around, she also gave him a look, but hers was much more soft around the edges.

“She’s fine, really,” said Lily after a pause. “She’s just… protective.”

“No, I get it.” James struggled with what he wanted to say for a moment. “Listen, I’m sorry, I guess what I was trying to say—” 

Lily shushed him by putting her hand over his mouth. Heart skittering in his chest, he looked at her, beautiful and stoic and with just a trace of dried blood under her right ear. 

“I don’t want to argue,” she said. “I missed you. I was scared today. I’m tired. I just — I don’t need to hear anything from you right now.” 

James nodded. After Lily hesitantly withdrew her hand, he mimed zipping his lips. 

It was alright, making amends with Lily Evans after kissing her and then disappearing for a week and a half. She cajoled Petunia into leaving the two of them alone, and they sat and drank lukewarm tea and biscotti and Lily even let him pour some of her whisky into his cup. She recounted in a steady voice the attack of that morning, and when he gasped in all the right places, she rewarded him with placing her hand on his arm.

He stayed there until late, until she had exhausted her supply of tea and alcohol, and when she stood to walk him the few steps to the fireplace, he kissed her without hesitation. She kissed him back, sweet and a little salty, and pulled back just slightly until their foreheads touched.

“Bring me to your office,” she said. “Not now, but soon. I want to see you there.”

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” he said in a gentle but admonishing response. “And be nice to Alice Longbottom, I’m going to assign her to you as guard duty.”

She kissed him then, just a short one, and then stepped back, looking exhausted and strong and enigmatic.

He was a goner.

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James signed off his approval for an authorized Portkey to transport Lily to the Ministry at noon, and by one p.m. he was pacing anxiously in his office. Marlene was out for lunch and Eric the Security Wizard refused to leave his post in the atrium, so he had sent Remus to collect Lily. 

Sirius had volunteered, but he couldn’t have the first of his friends to meet Lily be _Sirius,_ not unless he wanted her to flee the country immediately. The muggle world wouldn’t be able to go on without her. 

He had a small mirror in the drawer of his desk that he pulled out now. His hair was irreconcilable as always, but he looked okay otherwise. Plus, Lily had seen him before. It was the fact that she was seeing him in his office that was more nerve-wracking. 

He could hear her voice now. She must be coming around the bend in his entry foyer with Remus. He stashed the mirror in his desk and rubbed his sweaty palms on his pants. Should he be pretending to work? Should he try to hide the fact that he was waiting for her? In a split second decision, he grabbed a stack of papers from his desk and faced the back wall of his office. _Merlin,_ he probably looked stupid, pretending to read what he realized were expenditure reports, but he head the telltale footfalls behind him and knew he had to play it off.

“Oh, hi!” he said, whirling around and pretending to be surprised. Remus had on that familiar bemused smile he often wore when looking at James which reminded him of his father. Lily didn’t notice the blush already spreading across James’s cheeks. In fact, she wasn’t looking at James at all. Instead, she was turning in place, taking in the four walls of his office. 

He followed her gaze nervously, trying to see the room from her perspective. It was quite a bit smaller than her office in 10 Downing — wizards didn’t care so much about the Minister’s position. They stuck him in with the rest of the Ministry, after all. 

“Alright, Evans?” he asked, finally, after they had been in silence for a few moments. Her head snapped back to look at him, and to his surprise, she was… pouting. He’d never seen her pout before, and he wondered what was wrong about his office that made her look that way.

“Your office _rocks,”_ she said, all muggle, and James broke into a wide grin without even trying.

“Really?”

“Really!” Lily said. “The books! You have a whole library in here!”

“Most of them are rubbish,” Remus said, “James just has them in here to look smart.”

James blustered. “You were the one who wanted them in here!”

Lily and Remus were kind of similar, James realized with near-immediacy. Both whip-smart with understated wit and a softness for helping the people. When Remus left the room ‘to go fetch the other idiots,’ Lily saunted right up to James and kissed him quickly.

“Hullo,” he said, his face close to hers. “What was that for?” 

“Remus told me a story about you, your mum, and a bowl of jalapeño peppers…” But Lily couldn’t finish the sentence, because James had covered Lily’s mouth with his hand, and her eyes were watering with the effort of holding in laughter, and of course that was the moment that his friends had decided to re-enter.

“Oh shit.” Peter spoke first, physically careening backwards at the sight of them. Sirius’s eyebrows were so high up on his forehead they almost disappeared into his hairline.  
James removed his hand from Lily’s face, and her laughter turned audible. Sirius let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank Merlin, we thought you were strangling her or something.”

“Or a weird sex thing,” Peter said lightly. Then he stuck out his hand. “Peter Pettigrew.”

James’s head was already in his hands. “I can’t. I don’t know these people. I’ve never seen them before.”

But, of course, after an initial not-even-snag, Lily won over his friends in three minutes flat. Remus already liked her, Peter liked her the second she shook his hand, and Sirius gave in for a guffaw when she detailed James’s reaction to learning she knew about magic in their first introduction. She mimicked his facial expressions too, and had a surprisingly good imitation of his voice. 

They tried to talk her into coming home with them later that evening for dinner, but Lily declined, citing a work benefit or donor gala or something like that. Once the three of his friends left, Lily almost seemed to follow them, until she closed the door and pushed him back until his bum hit his desk and kissed him hungrily. 

“Can’t you wave your wand and put up a sound barrier or something?” Lily asked, her lips pressed against his neck. James complied. 

“I didn’t know you had such a kink for offices, Evans. I would’ve brought you here much sooner if I’d known.”  
“Shut up,” Lily said with a wicked smile, and James, already half hard because of the thing she did with her _tongue,_ felt the incessant rush of excitement that came from knowing he was about to have sex. She — Lily Evans — was about to have sex with him in the office of the Minister of Magic. Holy hippogriffs, she was a keeper. 

(And bloody Merlin, was he a chaser).

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Halloween was often a roguish affair for the Marauders, who unsurprisingly loved a good shindig or hullabaloo. James had managed to skive off responsibilities for the night, which meant packing in double the work on Friday, October 30th, but was well rewarded for it when he walked into Remus and Peter’s room to see them dressed as the fourth and fifth Doctors, respectively.

“You’re such sci-fi dorks,” James said, internally high-fiving himself for nailing the muggle terminology. Remus, sweatered and curly-haired, rolled his eyes and smiled, and Peter smoothed his jacket sleeves.

“Do you think anyone will recognize our costumes?” Pete piped. 

“Doubtful,” said Remus. “Wizards wouldn’t know quality cinema if it grew two legs and performed in drag.”

“I feel like that’s a little brutal,” said James. “I like ‘Doctor Who’ whenever you watch an episode.”

“The first time you and Padfoot watched T.V., you cried because you thought Luke Skywalker was trapped in the box. Oh, and when we went to the movie theater that first time —”

Peter, thankfully, interrupted what was sure to be a riveting story of James’s muggle idiocies with a well-placed question. “What are you dressed as?”

James looked down at his costume. “It isn’t obvious?”

James was wearing a tartan bathrobe tied smartly around his middle and brown checkered slippers. His hair was vaguely pulled back by a hairnet, and he had transfigured his glasses from their circular shape to square.

“Are you a grandma?” Peter asked hesitantly, and James lasted two seconds before doubling over in laughter. 

“I’m McGonagall!” James straightened back up and twirled around. “Good ole Minnie in her nightly get-up.”

“That’s bold,” said Remus, mock-stern. 

“It’s not done yet, look.” Remus and Peter watched as James whirled to stand in front of the mirror, then, drawing the tip of his wand in lines on his face, painstakingly painted whiskers on his cheeks. “I’m nighttime Minnie as a cat.”

“Okay, that’s funny,” said Remus, and Peter giggled.

“Where’s Pads?”

James flounced over to Remus’s bed and sat. “He wants a dramatic entrance, as always.”

Barely a moment after James spoke, the door to his room flew open across the hall, and Sirius emerged. He was powdered head to toe in a translucent white powder. He wore his Hogwarts robes, a bit misfitting after years of unuse, but he had charmed the tie blue. After a second glance, it was clear that he was wearing nothing beneath his robes, which were draped open over his bare chest. He, too, was wearing glasses: big, bubble-rounded ones. He had pulled his long hair into twin pigtails.

“Oh my God,” said Remus, slipping into his panic-inflicted habit of swearing like a muggle. 

“You dressed as Myrtle,” said James flatly. He was trying very hard to hold down his laughter, which was threatening to burst forth from his chest. 

Sirius scoffed. “Not _just_ Myrtle, my dear Prongsie. _Sexy_ ghost of a dead girl. I call it: ‘Make Me Moan’-ing Myrtle.”

Remus broke down into a coughing fit, and James’s failed attempts at restraining his laughter brought actual tears to his eyes.

“Um,” Peter said, blinking rapidly. “That’s certainly… yeah.”

After Sirius spent a few minutes poking fun and ragging on the rest of their costumes, the four apparated to Alice and Frank Longbottom’s house. They passed Emmeline Vance and a vomiting Benjy Fenwick on the front lawn. Benjy paused from throwing up to give James a quick wave.

“What a lightweight,” Sirius muttered under his breath. 

Once inside, Frank hugged them all with customary bluster, then steered them towards Alice, looking pretty and golden dressed as a phoenix. 

“Is Lily here?” he asked, shouting over the din. She yelled something back about drinks, and James nodded before pushing on.

James found Lily in the kitchen, where she was peering suspiciously into the punch bowl. Her face, flushed from the lighting, lit up when she saw him.

“Hey!” she said. He slid himself through Marlene and Dorcas, who were arguing about something and liable to start snogging any second.

“Hey,” he said, mirroring her grin. Behind him, Sirius and Peter waded through the masses to go fiddle around the fridge. 

“What did you come as?”

Lily looked down at her clothing, which was largely her normal get-up — blazer, pants, button-up — except in a deep red. “Oh,” she said. “I’m Sexy Prime Minister.”

James kissed her.

He didn’t _mean_ to kiss her, just like that, and in front of his friends and acquaintances to boot, but he did anyway, and she kissed him back, and it was fine. It was all fine and under control. They were handling this like complete adults.

Forty minutes later, zipping up his fly, James made delirious eye contact through the mirror with Lily, who was fixing her makeup in the mirror. She smirked and looked over her bare shoulder at him.

“I can’t believe I had sex with you when you’re dressed like a cat woman,” she said, snorting. James wiggled his eyebrows.

“I can’t believe I had sex with you in your bodyguard’s bathroom,” he tossed back, and she snorted again. “Come on, let’s get out of here before someone else barges in here to do filthy things to a man costumed like a Hogwarts icon.”

Lily mimed throwing up, then wrinkled her nose. “Is that really so likely?” she asked. “Is someone else going to defile you, or something?”

“Nah,” he said, opening the bathroom door for her like a gentleman, “but Remus and Sirius will probably hook up, and it’s either here or at home where Peter and I will have to listen. 

“Oh, are they together?” asked Lily, brushing the wispy bangs from her face. James wanted to do it for her.

“Nah, but they shag every Halloween. Some sort of bet-turned-tradition.” 

Lily paused, looking pointedly at where a staggeringly drunk Sirius was dancing to Rasputin by Boney M., where Remus was laughing at him from where he was standing against the wall, and Peter was delayering his clothes to a dangerously near-naked degree. James opened his mouth to make some sort of justification for Lily, to explain that they are really nice people, just drunk and chaotic, but she had a bemused sort of look on her face. She took his hand in hers — soft, cool — and squeezed.

“I like your friends,” she said finally, and a warmth spread from his chest to his toes. 

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“Happy November.”

Lily was tracing his vertebrae with a cold finger, which was a delectable feeling, but James put it to an end by rolling over to face her. She looked beautiful in the morning; her hair forming a rat’s nest of a halo around her face, sunlight streaming through the blinds and illuminating a blurry swathe of light freckles across her nose, her lips curved into a sleepy smile. 

“November first,” he answered. “November is my favorite month.”  
“Really?” She resumed touching him, this time running a finger over his eyelids, his nose, the line of his jaw.

“Actually, my favorite is May,” he admitted. “But now it will be my favorite month.”

“Why?”

“Because it started by waking up next to you.”

Lily snorted. “You think you’re so romantic, don’t you.”

“A little.”

“Well, Mr. Minister, you’re only mediocrely romantic.”

“Says you, Madam Minister. You don’t say anything affectionate but can’t get your hands off my hot, hot bod.”

Lily is quiet for a second, as if she’s lost in thought. “Would you ever give it all up?” 

“Give what up?”

“Magic.”

James reached for his glasses to get a better look at her facial expression, which is inscrutable as ever. “I couldn’t just ‘give’ it up,” he answered slowly. “Magic is… more than even just my identity. It’s a part of me.” Lily made a hmm-ing sound that meant she was thinking. “Why, could you give up your world?”

“Yes.” Lily answered so quickly it gave James whiplash just to look at her. She glanced at the ceiling. “And no. I feel a duty to better my community but I don’t… well, they certainly don’t have that same obligation back to me.”

“Would you ever straddle them both?” At Lily’s questioning gaze, James elaborated. “Like, magic and muggle. Would you ever consider… keeping your eggs in both baskets?”

“Why are you so weird?” Lily asked, and James turned red.

“Sorry, I didn’t think it was a weird question, but I—”

Lily shut him up by kissing him, which was his favorite way of losing arguments. “No, silly. You’re weird for trying to ask me about making a long-term life with you.”

“Am not!” he protested, even though she was right.

“‘My eggs in both baskets.’ Just ask if I would move in with you after I’m unceremoniously booted from office.”

“That’s not going to happen!” James said, sounding angry. He always sounded angry when they spoke of her political opponents, who were racist and sexist and xenophobic and overall idiots. Lily rolled her eyes, which she always did when he said things like that.

“Okay, then what are you asking?”

“I’m asking if you like me enough to live in a world where I can do things you can’t. In any other world you can do everything I can do and more. Every world except mine.”

“That’s asking a lot,” said Lily. “That’s asking a mountain of me.”

“I’d move mountains if it meant I’d get to be with you.”

“Psh.” Lily snuggled in under his armpit, his bedsheets sliding from her shoulder to reveal the freckled curve of her neck. “Stop saying things that make me want to say yes.”

James felt a flicker of hope in his chest. “Is that a yes?”

“No.”

“Is that a maybe?”

Lily’s eyes were closed, but he could see her eyeballs moving under the skin of her eyelids. “It’s a ‘we’ll get there when we get there.’” 

They didn’t get there until much later, after Lily had left office on her own terms to pursue a role in the United Nations, after James had passed a number of her proposals into wizarding law, after Marlene and Lily had become solid friends and formed the Pureblood-Muggle Coalition for Equality, after James had snuck into Petunia’s wedding to a horrid man named Vernon Dursley for moral support, after James and Lily had shagged on every surface in James’s office, including the bookshelves.

When they got ‘there,’ there was no question. There was only the plan of a future where they would both do everything they could for the sake of their communities. 

“Lily Evans,” James would say often. “The most selfless woman in all of England.”

“Not completely selfless, love.” Lily was sprawled out on her bed while James was kissing butterflies up her inner thigh. Her breath caught as he smiled against her leg. 

“Are we there yet?” He placed another kiss right on her hip crease. “Are we there yet?” A kiss on her lower abdomen.

There were a lot of things in James’s life he could attribute to luck: meeting Sirius on the first Hogwarts Express ride to Hogwarts, pulling off an unregistered Animagus transformation in a record three years, winning an election. Lily was no luck and all hard work, hers and his alike. There was no world in which they could be separated by something as trivial as magic.

**Author's Note:**

> my favorite part of writing this was watching the "her sister was a WITCH" video as 'research' :D 
> 
> happy jilytober all xoxo please let me know what you thought, this was my first long one-shot and I'm always eager for feedback!


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